Monks are obviously cool. And being Horde is also cool. But which Horde race will make the best monk? If racial abilities are unimportant, and perhaps background and aesthetics are your thing, then these racial abilities mean little, so just be a Panda. However, if they are important to you, here’s a list of the available races:

• Blood Elf
• Forsaken
• Orc
• Pandaren
• Tauren
• Troll

And here’s a rundown of their racials:

• Blood Elf: Blood elves only have three racials right now, and outside of professions only two can be considered even a little useful. Arcane Resistance will provide you a small amount of resistance to Arcane-based abilities, and it scales with level, but in the end it’s unlikely to be the difference between life and death. Arcane Torrent is a small area silence lasting two seconds that also restores a little mana, energy or rage. It’s on a two minute cooldown and acts as an interrupt against spell casting enemies, so its usefulness is situational. Monks do have their own interrupt on a shorter cooldown, but this is available from the first level and it might be nice to have a secondary ability to use in a pinch.
• Forsaken: The Forsaken have four racial abilities, and if recent news is to be believed, one of the older, less useful traits is being replaced by a shiny new one when the new expansion comes out. Let’s assume this is true. All four racials provide benefits to your PVE experience to varying degrees, but the new trait (Touch of the Grave) looks the most enticing. In its current incarnation it will provide a passive chance on any hit to cause additional shadow damage and heal you for the same amount. This looks very helpful for increasing DPS and survival, but since the proc rates and amounts aren’t fixed yet and the racial will likely be subjected to a nerf, its usefulness is unknown. Still, a very nice trait. They also have a small amount of innate shadow resistance which is marginally helpful in some scenarios, Cannibalism (which allows you to eat a human or forsaken corpse to regen Hp and mana more quickly outside of combat) and Will of the Forsaken, which is similar to the trinket ability except it only affects fears, charms and sleeps. Again, this is helpful, but not in every situation.
• Orc: Orcs have four racials, but only two are of any use to monks. Blood Fury and Hardiness. Blood Fury provides a 15 second buff that modestly increases atack power and spell damage on a 2 minute cooldown. Hardiness is a passive ability that reduces the length of stuns on you by 15%. Increasing your DPS a little is nice, but reducing stuns is average at best for PVE. Some mobs do stun uncommonly, but you’re unlikely to notice the difference in length most of the time.
• Pandaren: Gourmand and Epicurian really complement one another in PVE, particularly when it comes to scenarios in which the doubled well fed effects really count (like raiding). Bouncy could have some use against raid bosses that toss players into the air. Quaking Palm is definitely handiest solo or in groups, particularly if you’re a Brewmaster or Windwalker, though it might have use against trash in raids. But of them all, before you hit L90, Inner Peace will be your best friend. You’re going to level quite a bit faster with this bonus.
• Tauren: All four of the cow racials have at least limited use in PVE, which is better than most. War Stomp can stun up to five enemies for two seconds, which can provide a nice interrupt to your arsenal or simply provide you a small window to flee if you need it. Monks have a few nice AOE damaging abilities of their own, so there might be some nice synergy here (every two minutes at least). Endurance provides a passive 5% increase to your health which is quite helpful. It could make the difference in a close battle with NPCs or it might not, but how can more HP be a bad thing? Nature Resistance gives a small amount of extra protection from nature spells which, again, is situational and may very well not be useful at all. Lastly Cultivation, along with increasing your herbalism, provides a boost to the speed with which you gather herbs. I only include it because herb gathering is a source of experience and gold, and being able to do it a little quicker might shave off some time here and there.
• Troll: Trolls have a whopping six racial traits, more than any other race, but only four of them are of any use to a monk and two of those are situational. Da Voodoo Shuffle reduces the length of movement imparing effects by 15% which could be useful if your trying to escape a mob that’s slowed you or catch one. This is situational and will rarely end up saving your life, although in some circumstances it might make life a little easier. Beast Slaying gives you a passive 5% buff to your damage, but only against beasts. Of course, this trait is better the more often you fight beast-type enemies so, again, it’s situational. Regeneration gives you a 10% increase to your in-combat and out-of-combat health regen. It may save your life occasionally, but it will always decrease the time you spend resting between fights. Berserking is the strongest troll racial because it provides you with a 20% increase to your attack speed for 10 seconds, and it’s on a two minute cooldown. This stacks with all the other monk haste abilities, so it’s a nice addition to their fighting tools and could provide some good burst damage.

Overall, there are some intriguing choices for a Horde monk, however I can’t see past the Forsaken with their new passive life drain. If it’s as good as it seems and doesn’t get nerfed, it makes the Forsaken an easy choice for a monk. Although if it does, I can easily see Taurens and Trolls edging them out for the top spot with their collection of useful to semi-useful abilities.